Report: Police Deaths Increase 56%; Ambush Deaths Match Decade-High

A report published on Tuesday shows that the number of police deaths increased by 56 percent in 2014 and included 15 ambush deaths.

The annual report was released by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) and comes just days after NYPD officer Rafael Ramos was laid to rest. Ramos was one of two police officers (The other was his partner Wenjian Liu) who were ambushed and killed on December 20 by a gunman who doesn’t deserve to have his name reported. The assassin reportedly killed the officers as retribution for the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

The NLEOMF report found that there were a total of 50 officers killed in the line of duty in 2014. These numbers are much higher than the 34 total police deaths in 2013, and about the same as 2012. In 2011, 73 officers were killed in gunfire — the highest recorded in the last decade.

However, while the total number of police fatalities is far below historic highs and remains below the year-to-year average, the number of ambush killings, 15, matches the 2012 total, which is the highest recorded number since 1995. Over the weekend, two police officers were ambushed in South Los Angeles after responding to a 911 call. Fortunately, neither officer was killed.

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About the Author

Shawn M. Griffiths

Shawn is the Election Reform Editor for IVN.us. He studied history and philosophy at the University of North Texas, and joined the IVN team in 2012. He has several years of experience covering the broad scope of political and election reform efforts across the country, and has an extensive knowledge of the movement at large. A native Texan, he now lives in San Diego, California.